Strong February Employment Still Downplayed by Some Media

As good a month as February was for Americans looking for work, some
media continued to do a sub-par job of informing the public about
the condition of the nations labor market even as almost a
quarter of a million new positions were created. Although the
overall coverage was better than last month and throughout 2005,
some of Americas leading media outlets downplayed the fabulous news
released by the Labor Department on March 10, while The Most
Trusted Name in News largely ignored it.

While Wall Street cheered the great news the Dow Jones Industrial
Average rallied by 104 points after the announcement ABC and The
New York Times werent content to allow people to celebrate for very
long. Instead, The Times began downplaying the good news in the
first sentence of its March 11 article, stating the report was
igniting concerns on Wall Street that higher wages could fuel
inflation.

And, though ABCs World News Tonight led with this story on the
evening of March 10, it finished its report discussing those still
having a hard time finding work, suggesting that this may account
for why 57 percent of Americans in our ABC polling say this economy
is bad.

Yet, some media outlets appeared to heed
the advice given in the Business & Media Institutes January
special report
Hit Job: Networks Emphasize Layoffs in a Year of 2 Million New
Jobs. In particular, CBS, NBC, and The Washington Post gave
uncharacteristically balanced reports on the February data,
including phrases like This is a surprisingly strong start of the
year and There are a lot of new jobs out there.

As
reported by Bloomberg on March 10: American employers added a
greater-than-expected 243,000 workers in February and incomes rose,
signs the job market will bolster consumer spending and economic
growth. Yet, although this information was released at 8:30 a.m.,
CNN didnt bother reporting this to its viewers until more than 12
hours later near the end of Paula Zahn Now. Even worse, regardless
of the importance of this monthly stat, the show gave it a mere four
sentences.

The Times and ABC didnt do much better,
and instead continued with the trend of downplaying good
unemployment numbers even in the face of extremely strong data. For
instance, The Times
article began downplaying the news in the very first sentence. After
reporting the good job gains, writers Eduardo Porter and Vikas Bajaj
added immediately that this is igniting concerns among many Wall
Street economists that higher wages could fuel inflation and
increase expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest
rates further. As a result, The Times created a no-win situation
for the economy: bad news is bad, and good news is bad.

Next, The Times offered its readers another reason to not celebrate
these fabulous numbers: But some economists cautioned that
employment is benefiting from the exceptionally mild weather in
January and the beginning of February, and that employers' demand
for workers is unlikely to remain as strong in the coming months.
Once again, The Times created a lose-lose situation. After all, if
the weather had been cold the past couple of months, the Times
likely would have focused on high energy bills bills that werent
nearly as high as forecast thanks to the mild winter.

The Times continued to temper the good news of this report with
weather concerns throughout its article: Yet the job market may not
remain as robust as it now appears, as employment over the last two
months has been inflated by exceptionally mild weather. The authors
even found an economist to support this view: Brian Bethune, United
States economist at Global Insight, an economic analysis firm in
Lexington, Mass., said that if one excluded the temporary effect of
the balmy winter as well as some boost to jobs from the
reconstruction efforts on the Gulf Coast employment growth is
averaging about 180,000 jobs a month.

Certainly, no one can contest that February was an unseasonably mild
month, and that this might have had an impact on hiring in some
sectors of the economy. However, such factors were built into the
expectations by analysts and economists that payrolls would increase
by 210,000, a number that was greatly exceeded. And, as Bloomberg
reported, most economists are forecasting very strong job numbers
for the rest of the year regardless of the weather: Recent surveys
show business executives are preparing to boost hiring and wages.
Fifty-nine percent of U.S. firms plan to increase employment over
the next 12 months, leading to a 2 percent gain in jobs, according
to a survey of chief financial officers issued by Duke University
this week.

A third caveat offered by The Times for its
readers to be concerned with was housing: These gains are unlikely
to continue at their current rate, as the housing market begins to
wobble, housing inventories rise and the construction of new homes
starts to decline. Of course, according to a
special report done by The Business & Media Institute last November, journalists have been
forecasting a crash in the housing market with disastrous economic
portent since 2001.

Not to be outdone in the downplaying mode
was ABCs World News Tonight. Now, to its credit, ABC at least
covered this piece of economic data last month when the January
employment numbers were released on February 3. As
noted by
Brent Baker of the Media Research Center, World News Tonight
didnt bother reporting the news of a 0.2-percent decline in
Januarys unemployment rate, focusing that Fridays installment
instead on the cartoon outrage by Muslims and a full piece on an
Institute for Highway Safety study on how design changes in SUVs
have reduced deaths in smaller vehicles they hit.

To compensate for last months oversight, World News Tonight led
with Februarys unemployment report. Host Elizabeth Vargas stated,
We begin with signs of strength for the US economy. After sharing
some of the positive data, correspondent Dean Reynolds downshifted
into gloom gear: But anxiety remains. Reynolds then interviewed
some folks having a hard time finding a job. There may be more
jobs, but is - is it in the field where I can be best placed? asked
one of these job seekers.

Reynolds continued with more negativity: The anxiety is fueled in
part by word that manufacturing, long a mainstay of the nation's
economy, lost 1,000 jobs last month. The economy gained 243,000
jobs, but World News Tonight spent time talking about one sector
that lost 1,000 jobs. Reynolds then interviewed Professor Peter
Morici of the University of Maryland Business School who reinforced
this sense of doom: Basically, manufacturing's in neutral while
everybody else is expanding. This has not been a great recovery for
ordinary workers.

Even worse, despite marvelous news, Reynolds concluded this segment
with an absolute downer: And that may account for why 57 percent of
Americans in our ABC polling say this economy is bad, Elizabeth. And
why only 17 percent say it's getting better.

On the positive side, the CBS Evening News, which also neglected
Januarys drop in unemployment, made amends on March 10. Filling in
for Bob Schieffer, anchor Steve Croft began his report: A lot of
Americans have jumped back into the job market, and that's pushed
the unemployment rate up a bit to 4.8 percent. Still, there are a
lot of new jobs out there. Croft then handed it off to
correspondent Anthony Mason, who reported on how one industry is
actually having a hard time finding employees in this strong labor
market: It's the worst labor crisis in the industry's history. The
American Trucking Association says it needs another 20,000 drivers,
and the shortage could grow to 100,000 within a decade.

The NBC Nightly News also did an accurate job on March 10. Brian
Williams began his report:

Payrolls rose by close to a quarter of a million in February. That
was better than expected, an improvement over January. Those
brighter prospects sent more people streaming into the labor market,
which sent the unemployment rate up a notch to 4.8 percent.

Unlike The New York Times and ABC, NBC highlighted an economist who
actually liked these numbers. [Companies] have lots of cash, they
now have some confidence, and the combination of cash and confidence
means lots of jobs, said Moodys Mark Zandi.

And, The Washington Post did a fair job
with this data in its March 11
article
as well. Author Neil Irwin began enthusiastically, Employers added
jobs rapidly last month, the latest evidence that the U.S. economy
began the year on an upswing, and emphasized this sentiment later
with, The new report provides further evidence that the economy is
growing at a healthy pace, after a lull at the end of last year.
Although The Post had similar caveats as The Times, including the
unseasonably mild February weather, Irwin at least waited until the
fourth paragraph rather than downplaying the numbers in the first
sentence.

All in all, despite a lot of gloom and doom, the media showed a huge
improvement in covering this important piece of economic data.
Whether four and a half years of uninterrupted economic growth is
finally wearing down the constant media pessimism, or this is just a
rare moment of clarity for the press, still remains to be seen.

Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and contributing
writer to the Business & Media Institute. He is also contributing editor
for the Media Research Centers NewsBusters.org. Noel welcomes
feedback at nsheppard@costlogic.com.

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